Lions Tour: Coach Warren Gatland plays down opening concerns

If Warren Gatland is harbouring any sense of dread about what lies ahead for his Lions, he did a pretty good job at burying it deep inside him.

Following a stunningly average performance against the New Zealand Barbarians, the Lions appear to have a small mountain to climb if they are to be more effective on Wednesday against the Blues.

There's much to fix. Almost every aspect of the Lions' game was poor in Whangarei and if they come to Eden Park with a similarly disjointed and lacklustre performance, they will be in big trouble.

But Gatland, who is on his third Lions tour, knows that a tour falls into a rhythm. He knows, or hopes, that the first performance of a Lions tour typically never looks like the last.

The composite side, in his experience, tend to make exponential gains as they evolve. So yes there was some poor technical work at the breakdown. Yes the Lions were beaten for speed to the ball and yes they were guilty of some poor decision making and execution when they had a half chance to cash in.

That, though, was to be expected said Gatland. The team only arrived in New Zealand on Wednesday and half of the players that ran out against the Barbarians were still suffering from jet lag.

"It was very tough," said Gatland. "We learned a lot tonight and the first thing is how tough it is to come to New Zealand and how motivated the teams against us are going to be.

"Tonight tested us. We created a couple of opportunities and we need to be a bit more critical in terms of finishing that. We were held up over the line four times and if we had finished those opportunities then the game would have been reasonably comfortable.

"The concerns are to be more accurate when we finish. The players are going to be disappointed that they didn't finish well. The pressure in terms of the game was the stuff we put on ourselves. We will get better."

It's never easy playing that first game. The mistakes are going to come. The players are going to take their time to gel and it's not as if the Lions have any baseline from which they are working.

They have that first game in the tank now and while it was ugly, full of mistakes and bits the Lions would rather forget, it is at least a start from which they can build.

That's why Gatland isn't jumping around. He will be more concerned than he let on, but he is right to point out that not only have the Lions of 2017 got no playing history, they were also battling a handful of other factors.

"Some of the guys haven't got into regular sleep patterns yet," he said. "We knew it was going to be in difficult in terms of adjusting in such a short period. The most important thing was getting the tour off to a good start. We can go away now with a number of things to work on."